Meditation makes you smarter

Want to improve your health in as little as 15 minutes a day without doing anything? Give some thought to meditation. Doing nothing's actually the whole point of it. Training your mind not to do anything seems paradoxically to do quite a lot. Not only does it help reduce blood pressure, heart rate and stress hormones, it seems to change the brain in ways that make you smarter.

Although meditation's often used as a kind of worship or prayer, it's not necessarily a religious practice. You don't need to adopt a lotus position or follow any particular beliefs. It's really an exercise to focus your attention.

By focusing on an image, a sound, or your breath, the goal is to trigger a state…